Love can be strange
by Chris Oddland
Summary: A little fic set several years after the Meteor incident. This is actually a CloudYuffie fic. Strange isn't it?


Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 (or if you prefer VII) is the property of Squaresoft (If they haven't changed the company's name for some unknown reason. Was it Square-Enix?

Note: This is a little epilogue fic that occurs after the events of the game. It's not meant to be very long. I just wanted to make a little feelgood fic for some unknown reason.

Seygram13 presents: Love can be strange

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Several years have passed since the Meteor incident involving the madman Sephiroth.

While vanquishing the main villain in fairy tales would have meant that everyone in the world would live happily ever after, it was in reality not true.

There would always be conflicts where sentient and living things existed. Conflict is a part of our nature as much as other things. While conflict is a natural thing, it must however never be used to justify acts of violence against other beings. Just because some things are part of our nature, doesn't mean that they should be.

For every Shinra that fell, someday a new one would eventually rise. For every Sephiroth that was killed, a new one would be created and take his place.

Where there is good, it must also be balanced by evil, its polar opposite. The same thing could apply to order and chaos.

For good to exist, there must be evil and vice-versa. For how can light exist without shadow and darkness.

Many philosophers around the world have come with their theories about the various ethical debates concerning that which is deemed as good and that which is deemed with evil.

These thoughts were going through the head of Cloud Strife, disrupting his concentration as he sparred with the younger opponent in front of him.

After having brought Zack's remains to his parents, explaining the cause of his death, Cloud chose to bury the powerful sword Ultima Weapon with his friend, placing it in his coffin. He kept Zack's Buster Sword as something to remember the man who saved him. He did upgrade it so that it could contain more slots where Materia orbs could be inserted, and the massive blade had been sharpened and replaced with a stronger alloy that also made it lighter to wield than before.

The sparring partner wielded a sword similar to the one he wielded, and she wielded it well.

Her style was simple, blunt and very unorthodox. While her sword locked his sword, she struck out with a vicious kick. This one hit him in the stomach, sending him to ground making him lose his weapon.

She had improved.

"I win again, daddy." Commented smilingly his sixteen-year-old daughter Ayumi Kisaragi Strife to her fallen father. She knew that her father was distracted by something, but he had always taught her to exploit any openings in a fight.

While she had mostly inherited her mother's Wutaian looks, she had also inherited Nibilheimer traits from her father. She had the eyes and the raven-black hair of her mother, but her hair was in fact spiky like her father and Zack's had been. She wore a uniform based on the one Zack had given him.

Suddenly a giant shuriken imbedded itself a few metres near Cloud.

"Honestly, father." Said his fifteen-year-old son Hideki Kisaragi Strife. "You should have been prepared for that one."

"Sorry, Hideki. My mind was somewhere else at the time."

Hideki also had more Wutaian traits than Nibilheimer ones like his sister. But in contrast, his hair was blond like his fathers, but not spiky in any way. He was also dressed like a ninja.

While most people in Wutai had frowned upon the notion of a foreigner marrying the materia-stealing daughter of Lord Godo, Cloud had managed to economically help to rebuild Wutai by using the resources he had gathered to buy various Materia that could be used and afterwards sold to further the economical interests of the region. He also advised Lord Godo to use a considerable amount of money gained from tourism to build a hospital and build a medical pharmacy that would give Wutai the opportunity to no longer being forced to resort to tourism to survive financially.

Godo had also been rather displeased with his daughter's suitor, but getting the Knights of the Round as a form of wedding gift seemed to make him accept Cloud with open arms. In Nibilheim it was the custom to give the parents of the bride a very expensive gift as a token of friendship and acceptance. Or it could be called a bribe by some people…

It had been rather hard for Cloud to learn the language spoken in Wutai and learning the writing system used there, but he gradually improved with a little help from Yuffie and Godo.

The wedding ceremony had been rather un-Wutaian actually.

Yuffie had chosen to wear a wedding dress instead of a kimono, but decided not to wear a veil, keeping her headband out of old habit. She also hated high-heeled shoes and wore instead low-heeled ones.

She had decided that a ceremony that Cloud was accustomed to was probably the wisest and fastest thing. But Cloud wanting to respect her culture actually wanted a Wutaian ceremony. He changed his mind afterwards after Yuffie explained to him about how the ceremony was somewhat different to someone raised in Nibilheim. Godo forbade them from having a goth wedding fortunately and they had to make do with the more traditional ceremony. They would have opted for a nice private ceremony, but Yuffie's father "insisted" on having something that bordered on grand to their chagrin.

To Cloud, Yuffie looked quite beautiful in her white wedding dress. He on the other hand wore a black tuxedo he had ordered from Midgard, since there were problems with finding clothes that actually fit him in Nibilheim due to the difference in sizes.

It had been rather strange that they had actually become a couple.

While he as a child had a crush on Tifa, and afterwards Aeris when he first met her, he had actually discarded the thoughts about getting into a relationship. He had his hands full with that split personality that had assimilated itself with his normal one at that time.

Then they met the young ninja in one of the forests when she was trying to rob them all silly of their Materia. They beat her down and she joined the rather dysfunctional group they comprised.

Strangely enough, Yuffie reminded of himself when he was younger. She had problems with motion sickness like he had before Zack's personality had been added to his normal one. She had that same arrogant streak he had as a child. But there were also differences when it came to ethical perspectives and other things.

He also remembered the incident in Wutai where Yuffie stole all their Materia. He did understand that she had her reasons and they all did forgive her in the end. He did at least.

It had actually been on that couple's night at the Gold Saucer where he discovered that the Wutaian girl harboured romantic feelings for him. At first he had been confused, feeling that there was a gap in ages between them, but he somewhat shyly returned her kiss with his own.

After Sephiroth kicked the bucket, he thought that cultural and ethical differences would eventually tear them apart in the end, and that he felt that he was too old for her due to their age difference.

But he had proposed to her, and she had accepted it.

They had decided that they would settle down in Wutai, since it was Yuffie's home, and the fact that most of the original inhabitants of Nibilheim were quite dead or used as experimental subjects by the mad scientist Hojo. Cloud was afraid that Yuffie's people would ostracize her for marrying a foreigner, but then again, Cloud didn't actually fit the image of the exploiting foreigner who married foreign women just to have someone to control more easily. In fact they deemed him as a strange weirdo from a mountain town, therefore mostly harmless. He hoped they soon would get tired of the Nutty Guy from the Icy Mountain jokes hurled at him. He was also worried about not fitting in Wutai's society.

The wedding was successful without any form of interruption in any way. And they had made their vows and were declared as husband and wife by the priest, as they shared the traditional wedding kiss.

He remembered the wedding celebration afterwards more clearly than the ceremony itself.

He remembered his friends and companions congratulating him after the wedding. Even Tifa had come and wished him good luck with his life as a spouse of a materia-hunting ninja.

He remembered how he danced with Yuffie. It was a rather popular waltz played in the background as they danced together on the dance floor. While both of them weren't exactly any fond of dancing, they danced pretty well for someone who had been taking dancing lessons some days before the wedding. It was actually nice to dance with Yuffie even if he was as romantic as a doorstop when it came to romance and such. The both of them had good time dancing together.

Both of them knew that they didn't actually fit the image of the perfect couple, but love can be strange. After some years maybe their love for each other would die out and they would divorce and go their separate ways. They were realistic enough to know that people could change for good or for worse and that most couple's dissolved with time, but they preferred not to speculate that much even if they often talked about it. It was the present they were together in that counted, not the future.

A few weeks after the wedding, Yuffie had discovered that she was pregnant, even if they both had used contraceptives. It was quite ironical for them that the small probability of conception had occurred, since they felt that they weren't ready for the horror known as parenthood and should therefore wait for a couple of years.

They decided to keep the baby. Not because they had any ethical problems regarding abort, but due to the fact that none of them really had any career or job to lose by keeping the child. After nine months, several mood swings, craving of exotic foodstuff, buying things needed to take care of babies, tackling immense periods of stress--Yuffie finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl with black, spiky hair and brown eyes and was reasonable enough to take some medication that reduced the pain of labour but not harming the baby in any way.

Since their little daughter was born in Wutai, Yuffie and Cloud decided that a Wutaian name was the most appropriate thing for her. They finally decided to name her Ayumi (even though Cloud didn't know what that name meant and still doesn't since he didn't want to bother his wife with such trivial matters). She was rather quiet and sweet girl most of the time, but when she began crying and screaming it felt almost like the roof would fall down. The bad things and the good things about parenthood fortunately outbalanced each other for them.

Then Yuffie got pregnant again some months later, resulting in nine more months of frustration and stress. And then she gave birth to a little baby boy with blond hair and brown eyes. They decided to give him the name Hideki. Hideki was in some ways like his sister and in other ways not. He had a tendency to filch stuff to the dismay of his parents. Like the incident where the little baby tried to steal the Bahamut Zero materia.

Godo himself said that little Hideki had the potential of becoming good in thievery.

He was right about that.

Luckily they had finally purchased contraceptives that were almost fail-proof. They did love their children, but having more children would probably driven them insane, since they had their hands full many times with their mischievous children.

If any people in Wutai had any prejudices against the two children that were of mixed ethnical heritage, they chose to remain quiet since one of their parents wielded a giant sword, and the other one brandished a giant shuriken. And the fact that they possessed a materia arsenal that would make most people green with envy, or shudder in fright.

Both Ayumi and Hideki had chosen to become adventurers like their parents, but both of them specialized in their own field. Ayumi was more combat-oriented, while Hideki preferred stealth and thievery.

Cloud was proud that his children turned out to be more reasonable than he had been at their age. He knew that even if he wasn't exactly what one would call a good father, he had managed with Yuffie to raise them in a reasonable way.

"Gawd, Cloud! Sometimes you think to much for your own good!"

"Hi, Yuffie," he said to his wife appearing from seemingly nowhere. She still retained her sneaking skills from back then.

While none of them were really that young anymore, they had managed to still stay together despite cultural and philosophical clashes. They had managed to agree that if they had a divorce, they would at least part as friends and share the custody of their children equally.

"Didn't you forget that we were going to plan that materia heist today." Yuffie muttered sourly.

"No, dear," lied Cloud, "I was just training Ayumi a little.

"Let's just go home. I have the layout and map of the building there."

"Containing all the information about security measures?"

"Yes."

They walked towards the direction of their own house, holding hands.

Cloud smiled.

So he was now the accomplice of a materia-filching woman.

But then again, love can be strange…..

It can indeed.

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Author's notes:

This little fic isn't really that good, but sometimes some people want to write a little feelgood story without any antagonists in it.

I don't know why I wrote it, but the notion of a Cloud/Yuffie pairing seemed a little cute in my opinion.

All you critics are free to flame this fic if ya want to.

Any FF7 fic-writers are free to use ideas inspired by this fic. (But what sort of person would be inspired by this ill-attempted fic?)

Thank you for at least taking time to read it, even if you don't review it.


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